


Can't Tell What is Bruise, and What is Open Wound

by chrysanthanos (crispyjenkins)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Daemons, Cameo by an Extinct Prehistoric Cat, Canon-typical swearing, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Homunculi don't have daemons, M/M, No underage, Safe Sane and Consensual, and i read them as ace spectrum anyways so also no sexual situations implied or otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crispyjenkins/pseuds/chrysanthanos
Summary: "I believe I have something you want."That toothy grin spreads until it's almost dripping with delight. "Perhaps I need to shuffle my exchange rates, if you so easily calculate them now."Ed tosses the oily blob that had once been Father down before Truth's folded knees. "To be fair, most people aren't coming back for seconds, or thirds."
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121





	Can't Tell What is Bruise, and What is Open Wound

**Author's Note:**

> **IMPORTANT**  
>  "Gel" is pronounced with a hard G, like "gelding". i didn't realise until 2,000 words in that gel is already a word, and by then i was attached lmao  
> on that note, "Marchesa" is pronounced "Mar • kessa"
> 
> daemons are all named with a very specific scheme 😏 i'm a moron tho so good luck figuring it out, but i spent far too long on it
> 
> lightly edited on 12/4/20 for coherency and so it doesn't read like i wrote it in a frantic six hour haze after not writing for a week.
> 
> title from “i didn’t smell like poppies” by w.d.k.

"Isolde isn't yours."

Ed smiles bitterly, stroking gentle fingers under Isolde's eye and down her face, as she snuffles and eyes Roy sleepily from over Ed's thigh. "Everyone's always so surprised meeting her, thinking she doesn't suit me at all."

Roy watches them for a moment longer, curled up on the bench of the bay window in his study, and then carefully puts his pen back in its holder and sets aside his alchemy journal. "Hm, she does rather suit Alphonse in retrospect." Marchesa yawns widely from the couch across the room, showing every single one of her sharp teeth, but the capybara half in Edward’s lap merely blinks at her. 

"Just my arm wasn't enough, you know," Ed says apropos of nothing as rain pelts the window and casts strange shadows over his face. "For... For the Gate."

Edward has tried to describe the Gate to Roy before, just as he's tried to describe it to Alphonse in an attempt to jog his memory, but even with drawings, the Truth proves impossible to recount to those that have not seen it themselves. Other than that, the brothers have spoken very little of what happened the night they committed the taboo — until now, Roy and the team have all thought that when Alphonse lies about his daemon hiding in his armor, it's because Ed had not been able to bind both halves of his soul back to the mortal realm.

Now, Roy knows better, but almost wishes he didn't.

"It wasn't enough for both of them," Edward murmurs, letting Isolde push her head up into his palm like a cat. "I couldn't just pick one of them, I couldn't do that to Al. It was Gel's idea, to stay with Truth in place of Isolde."

Roy has to close his eyes at that, his entire body _aching_ at the thought of leaving Marchesa behind for _anything;_ he's an only child, but perhaps... perhaps he could have made that choice for Maes, for Riza. 

Smooth as liquid, Marchesa slides off the couch to her paws, slinking back over to the desk and dropping herself at Roy's feet to press up against his legs. She doesn't look at him, though, her big eyes sad as she watches Isolde instead, the ease with which she touches Ed, and he touches her. 

"They're Separated," Roy realises with a resigned, quiet horror. 

"Al doesn't have flesh to tie her to," Ed says, shrugging helplessly. "They can still feel each other, but it's... distant now, they say."

Roy rests a hand on Marchesa's head, and even then his palm barely covers the top of her skull. They've met other lioness daemons, of course, other _lion_ daemons even, but none have quite matched Marchesa for size. They know what others think, that she represents his ego, his ambition, but Roy thinks he understands Al more than he's ever understood anyone else, understands what it's like to feel like a child clanking around in a suit of armor they have no hope of filling. Marchesa is his armor.

Now that he's sure Isolde isn't Ed's, Roy actually can't think of anything Gel could have settled on, that would suit their other half as well as Isolde suits Al. _A dragon, maybe,_ Roy thinks with a snort. 

"You’re being strangely forthcoming tonight, Fullmetal," he says, rubbing his fingers into the dip above Marchesa's brow until she purrs.

Somehow still smiling, although it's twisted and rueful, Ed thunks his head against the sill behind him. "Isolde said Marchesa was starting to suspect, and Al figured you already knew everything else about us anyways."

"Had Gel...?"

"No," he whispers. "Isolde settled just before I took the practical entrance exam, but Vosgetel, they– we never had the chance."

"Fuck," is all Roy can offer, and Ed laughs.

He rolls his head to look back out the window, and Isolde pushes up to flop herself over even more of his body. "She likes to guess sometimes," Ed admits, barely loud enough to be heard over the rain, "what Gel would have settled on."

"What they could _still_ settle on," Isolde immediately argues, and it certainly isn't the first time she's spoken in front of them, but it’s rare enough that Marchesa startles and stops purring. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you big rodent." Even as Ed smirks down at her, he continues to stoke her neck.

"When we get Al's body back, we will get Gel back," she says firmly, glaring over at the desk as if daring Roy to argue; Marchesa looks calmly back at her, but her tail flicks back and forth across the rug, and Roy knows Isolde intimidates her. Then, softer, Isolde adds, "You still feel them, you know they are still waiting."

Roy's stomach roils. "You're still connected?"

Ed squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, brows pinched, before meeting Roy's gaze squarely, and fuck, Ed still intimidates him a little bit, too. 

"I think we got Seperated, like Al and Isolde, but yeah, sometimes I can feel them. It's weird, it's stronger when I use alchemy, it's like some part of then is still helping me transmute." Lightning flashes outside, but the thunder takes almost twenty seconds to follow. "Mustang, I'm... I'm doing this for Al, being a dog of the military, and brushing elbows with the Führer, and pretending to care about rank and all the fucking _bullshit_ we have to put up with trying to find the Stone, but..."

Considering the teenager before him, Roy is again struck with just how young he had been when half of his soul had been ripped from him, their bond shredded as Truth stuffed his daemon in a box that Edward has traveled half the world and suffered twice the hardships trying to open again. Maybe Ed is just a little boy knocking around in too-big armor, too.

"Edward," Marchesa rumbles, the movements of her tail wavering, "you're allowed to want things for yourself too." She looks up at Roy for a moment, and they're on the same page (how could they not be on the same page), but he isn't sure how much she plans to say tonight; he nods her forward anyways. "Not even your father could hold wanting your daemon back against you." And if he tried, Marchesa would bite his head off.

Inexplicably, Ed slips into a soft, tired smile that is grateful and resigned all at once. "Thank you, Nessa," he sighs, the casual name twisting something raw and surprised in their chests, until it almost hurts just to _breathe._ Then Ed turns that smile onto Roy, and he realises at the same time as his daemon that they're both too far gone to make it out of this mess unscathed, that after all of this is over, he and Ed won't be able to go back to how things were before. 

Roy says goodbye to this night like an old friend, and gets to his feet to make them all dinner.

Vosgetel rockets back into their world a blur of tawny-black fur and snarling fangs, an actual living, breathing _Atrox lion_ so tall they almost need to bend _down_ to meet Father’s eye _—_ and they don't hesitate to rip Father's head messily from his shoulders. 

A breath later and they're back by Edward’s side, standing between him and the quickly-regenerating homunculus. Somewhere in the rubble behind them, Ed can't tell if it's Teacher or Marchesa that gasps, _"Fucking shit,"_ but he thoroughly agrees. 

Gel looks down at him, smiling with their whole fucking being, and says in a voice that sounds an awful lot like Al's, "Are you ready, pipsqueak?"

Instead of laughing, instead of crying, instead of screaming at the universe to give Al back to him, Ed rips the rebar pinning him right out of his arm and surges to his feet. "Just because you're taller than me now," he pants, letting Gel catch him against their side, "doesn't mean you get to call me _pipsqueak."_

Vosgetel laughs more like a purr, turning to lean their head into his chest for just a moment before Father starts to scream again. "C'mon, let's go get Alphonse and Isolde."

To get a daemon back from behind the Gate requires more than one soul, more than Al had just returned, because Ed had given a limb and Gel _both_ to get them back, so if Truth had seen fit to return Gel to him anyways, Truth must be expecting more. Perhaps a God's soul more. 

And, crunching his fist against Father's face, Edward finally feels strong enough to get it for them. 

_"Back again, my child?" Truth sneers, but Edward just smiles at them, and feels Gel's amorphous form press against his back._

_"I believe I have something you want."_

_That toothy grin spreads until it's almost dripping with delight. "Perhaps I need to shuffle my exchange rates, if you so easily calculate them now."_

_Ed tosses the oily blob that had once been Father down before Truth's folded knees. "To be fair, most people aren't coming back for seconds, or thirds."_

_Father’s soul wails, almost pitiful enough for Edward to feel bad, but the sound is quickly cut off when Truth lifts it by its equally-oily tail. "Fair is fair, Edward Elric," Truth says, holding Father’s soul to their chest like a stuffed animal. "Two daemons and a brother, in exchange for the souls of Xerxes."_

_He blinks as his ears pop, and Truth is there, standing inches away and finally eye-to-eye._

_"Thank you," Edward says softly, still smiling even as Truth laughs at him._

_"The final blow to the Dwarf in the Flask could not have been made by anyone but Vosgetel, by a daemon taken and returned from the Gate. I merely used the both of you to serve my own purpose."_

_"You can lie all you want," Ed shakes his head, "but you are not as complacent a God as you want us to believe." When that grin doesn't look quite so much like it wants to eat him, Ed musters up the courage to ask, "Do you have a daemon?"_

_Truth tilts their head, and then gently jerks their chin over Ed's shoulder. There's an honest to gods phoenix perched on top of Ed's Gate, watching over the white world like they are the only one with dominion, and honestly, they probably are._

_"See to it that I never see you in my realm again, Edward Elric." Truth presses two impossible fingers to Ed's chest, right over his heart. "You have given enough."_

_"Thank you," is all he can manage, unable to find breath in this world where he does not have lungs. "Thank you."_

_"Stop fucking saying that."_

_"What's their name?" Ed asks, as everything around him starts to grey at the edges._

_Truth gives him one last shove to the chest. "Their name is Flamel," they whisper, the echo following Ed as his body spins back out into the white._

He wakes to his brother’s hand on his cheek, Al's _beautiful. fucking. face._ swimming blearily above him as shouts seem to come from every direction. 

"Hello, brother," Al says as if they're the only two people in the world, and Ed realises Isolde is sitting between Al's knees, fully trembling with relief. And Gel, Gel is laying on the ground behind Edward’s back, pressed against him from shoulder to tail with their muzzle shoved into the back of his neck. 

He can't tell what they are, just that they're leagues smaller than the prehistoric lion they'd returned with, but it doesn't matter to Ed what they've settled on, they have all the time in the world to relearn every inch of each other.

Alphonse’s brows pinch together. "Brother?"

Edward licks his dry lips and tries to get his mouth to work, but all that comes out is a wheezing grunt, and Gel laughs into his hair like they're on the verge of tears. "He's alright, Al," they assure, and Ed closes his eyes again as he tries to filter through the voices calling their names. "He's just tired, Truth was... Truth asked a lot of us."

"Ah," Al murmurs, brushing Ed's dirty bangs off his forehead with his _flesh fucking hand, skin and bone and arteries and tendons_ and fuck, Edward’s eyes are burning as he forces them back open to grin tiredly up at him. 

"God, you look like shit," Ed manages hoarsely, and Al laughs, exhausted and tearful, yet somehow so bright that even euphoric cannot describe it.

"I've been behind my Gate for six years, brother, I have quite a lot of eating to catch up on."

"Edward! Alphonse!" 

Teacher finally makes it to them leaning on Antoine, still covered in blood when she slides off her bear daemon to her knees next to them and yanks Alphonse into a hug that looks like it hurts. Gel starts up a rumbling purr as Ling and Hohenheim join them on the ground, but it isn't until Edward hears Riza call out to them, hears Roy rasp, _"Vosgetel,"_ with no dearth of wonder that Ed decides the world can survive without him for a few hours, and lets his body drag him right back down into sleep.

Ed is lounging in the bay window when Roy stumbles home from his twelfth day working for twenty hours straight, and he's so tired from trying to get the government back up and running after the Promised Day that he almost doesn't believe Edward is really there. Marchesa perks up, though, proving his existence, and whuffs as she tiredly plods into the room, going right up to Ed.

And Roy doesn't stop her.

Raising a brow as Gel lifts their head from his stomach, Edward watches Marchesa approach with steady, dark eyes, and doesn’t flinch when she leans her head right into his hip. Roy, on the other hand, tenses at the odd sensation, foreign and warm and content, only to feel himself go almost completely boneless as Ed runs his newly-flesh fingers down Marchesa's neck. "Hello, Nessa," he murmurs, like not even Roy is supposed to hear. 

Gel starts to purr, loudly, and sleepily bats at Marchesa's head with a great black paw; she barely reacts, grunting and moving her head onto Edward’s chest. They aren't nearly as big as Marchesa, but Gel's chosen jaguar form is no small thing, especially when they stretch their coal-black body out over Ed's to butt their muzzle against the side of Marchesa's neck. 

"You just gonna stand there or what?"

Roy blinks and pulls his eyes back up to Ed, that smile just as foreign and warm and content, and the tension just about bleeds out of him, Roy finally able to drop his shoulders with a tired huff. "Should you even be out of the hospital?" he asks, setting his bag just inside the study door so he can take off his slightly-damp overcoat. 

Ed snorts, Roy getting distracted with the way Marchesa chuffs and purrs at Ed effortlessly stroking her ears. "Probably not, but Hawkeye let slip that you went back to work as soon as they let you sign yourself out, and by let slip, I mean she also sent me over with a casserole from Gracia."

He had been in the hospital all of three days before Dr. Marcoh restored his sight and mostly fixed his hands (they still ache sometimes, but it's a tiny penance compared to losing a limb, or a daemon, or a brother), and the Elrics had both been asleep when he was released, so he... hasn't actually seen Ed since before the Promised Day. Riza had kept him updated, of course, on Al regaining his strength and recovering from years of malnourishment, and on Ed healing from taking down a god with his fists, but Roy has been in Central Command, helping Grumman settle in, every waking hour since. Initially, he had intended to visit everyone still at the hospital, and now it's been over a fortnight since he'd last even spoken to Ed.

He still hasn't met Vosgetel properly. 

To be fair, Riza has been working just as much as he has, so he thinks it's rather unfair overkill to send Edward to try and wrangle him into a day off, but he can't deny the effectiveness. 

"Do I even want to know how you got into my house?" he sighs, and Ed just grins wider, gently shoving Gel off of him so he can swing to his feet. Now standing, Roy can see some of the strain from the fight, the dark circles under his eyes, the bandages around his shoulder just barely visible inside the arm of his jacket. 

But he saunters right up to Roy, nineteen and reckless, and doesn't let go of Roy's daemon the entire way. "That's not what you really want to ask," he says with a soft sort of confidence.

Roy's eyes flick to his lips even as his mind screams at him. "Why are you here, Ed?"

"'Cause your lieutenant was worried."

"Why are _you_ here, Ed?"

"'Cause _I_ was worried."

"Why did Hawkeye send you?"

"'Cause I'm the only one that'll sleep with you." Before Roy can choke on his own tongue, or shove Ed away, or stand there and freak the _fuck_ out about how to explain himself, Ed's smile slips back into something altogether far softer than Roy deserves. "I meant _actually_ sleep, dumbass. No offense, but I super do not want to get in your pants, and Hawkeye might have mentioned something about you not wanting to get into anyone else's."

And because he _is_ a dumbass, Roy mumbles, "I find it hard to believe that the only two people in Amestris uninterested in sex even know each other."

He scoffs, but fondly, and steps closer until he could kiss Roy's chin, if he really wanted. He doesn't, but the way his gaze seems glued just above that twists Roy's stomach into knots. 

"I can guarantee we are not the only people in Amestris who prefer alchemy to fucking — or automail to fucking, for that matter."

"Stop saying 'fucking'," Gel yawns from the window. 

Ed flips them off without looking away from Roy. "Point is, you're right, I really shouldn't be out of bed just yet and I'm _exhausted,_ and I have it on good authority that you haven't slept in thirty-six hours, and your queen-sized bed looks _really_ comfortable."

"You went in my room?" But Roy finds his lips twitching into a smile, and ducks down when Edward lightly tugs on his lapels. 

"Gel wanted to see if we'd all fit," he murmurs with a smirk, before pressing a featherlight kiss to the corner of Roy's mouth, "or if they'd have to pick something smaller."

Roy is just deciding whether or not he's allowed to kiss Ed properly when the words catch up to him, their implication flooring him. As if just for the theatrics (and Roy doesn't doubt it is), Gel drops down from the bench with another fang-filled yawn, but by the time they reach Ed and Roy across the room, they've traded jaguar skin for feathers, landing on Marchesa's back as a handsome little finch that chirps smugly up at them. 

"Gel isn't settling any time soon," Edward continues, "honestly, I don't even know if they _can_ settle, and, yeah, I'll be taking Al to Resembool as soon as he's well enough for the train ride, but the fact of the matter is, I've already signed my own release forms, and you couldn't _pay_ me to stay in the military dorms."

"Ah, so you're only using me for my bed?"

Ed lets go of his lapels and drops his hand down to the crook of Roy's arm instead, settling over the jacket still draped there. "I know you're joking, but just so there's no confusion: I'm using you for your kitchen, too." Roy blinks. "Like, were you aware your refrigerator was made for a family of _eight?_ It's a glutton's paradise in there, though I'm not sure why you think a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk constitutes a stocked pantry. 

The laugh takes Roy by surprise, as he sets his own hand on the back of Ed's neck and drops his forehead into Ed’s temple, closing his eyes in the soft down of his hair. "You’re right," Roy mumbles, Gel alighting to perch on his shoulder, "I haven't slept nearly enough for this conversation."

**Author's Note:**

> [here's](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OQ4ULIns_ULcj7iT8Vio2kjNY4HEnaZRq5k8Ro4bvqM/edit?usp=sharing) a table of all the characters i didn't get to because this is so short! if you follow my star wars stuff, you know i have far too much going on to invest in a full retelling with daemons, no matter how much i _want to do exactly that,_ but i did put a whole lot of research and thought into each character's daemons and their names, so i thought i'd share (ノ*´◡`) not my proudest work but it's also gotten me out of a writer's block so hey
> 
>   
> (i don't actually ship RoyEd in canon continuity, thus the age adjustments.)


End file.
